Australian Shepherd Molly Montana writes of her outdoor adventures with human, Kinsey Barnard. Kinsey takes the photos. They live in Montana and travel in their RV Clementine. Exploring is their favorite thing to do. Follow them and enjoy great stories, travel photos as well as travel & hiking tips particularly in Montana

15 June 2015

JOURNEY TO THE BLACK HILLS DAY 8 - THE BLACK HILLS

Well phooey! We today got well and truly rained out. It started in the early hours and never stopped all day.

Kinsey thought what the heck let's see what we can see. We wanted to go to the scared mountain Bear Butte. We headed that way. Here in the campground we are kind of closed off. Once we got out on the road we saw we weren't going to see much of anything. The clouds were socked in. The clouds were practically on the ground. Well, not more than a few hundred feet above it.

Australian Shepherd trying to sleep through the boredom

We went east on 90 until we hit Whitewood and Kinsey said, "This is ridiculous!" At Whitewood we got off the freeway and turned back for home. Also, ridiculous, South Dakota has just raised the speed limit to 80 miles per hour on some highways, 90 is one of them. With zero visibility the Dakotans were enjoying their new freedom to the max. It was scary.

On the way back we spotted a Super Wal-Mart. Kinsey went in and got some towels and rugs to help with the mess I'm making in Clementine. Somehow I seem to get very muddy.

As I already mentioned, Spearfish Campground is beautiful but it has one flaw which is particularly annoying when you are stuck inside, internet access is more or less useless. Pages load at the speed of molasses in January or it just disconnects. It's all I can do to write my daily blog entries, very frustrating. I'm going to have Kinsey look into getting our own internet connection for future travels. Kinsey doesn't have an iPhone. She was actually going to get one when she switched to Redot but was advised, for her purposes, the flip phone was better. The difference being it is more durable and has a better antennae.

Spearfish Campground Spearfish Creek really running

By three we were both about ready to go stir so we started out driving up Spearfish Canyon but it was the same story as earlier. Surprisingly, there were a lot of people on the road. I suppose it was because it was Sunday and Memorial weekend. Like us, people were determined to get out come hell or high water. Let me tell you the water was high in Speafish Creek. We got as far as Bridal Veil Falls and packed it in again.

Spearfish Creek up Spearfish Canyon

Back at the campground Kinsey decided to hook up to the cable. But, the cable outlet didn't work. Then she thought she'd maybe watch a DVD. No luck there either. She hadn't checked out the remote before we left and the batteries were dead. Nor had she removed them after last season so they had corroded in the unit. Turned out she hadn't thought to bring fresh batteries either. You can't play the DVD's without the remote. So, that was out too.

The weather channel says afternoon thunder showers. So, maybe tomorrow will be better. But, we aren't counting our chickens. The weather channel is wrong as often as it's right. We mighta got better info if we could have watched the local forecast. Now we know why it's so lush and green around here. It honestly never occurred to us that we might get rained out. Kinsey is reminded of her trip along the Oregon Coast but there it was to expected and the clouds were generally high enough you could work with it. Everybody needs moisture so we are happy for that but ..... FIDDLESTICKS!

We leave day after tomorrow for Hot Springs so if it doesn't stop we won't get to see much of anything in this part of the Black Hills.

If you haven't already, you can read the story of why we ventured to the Black Hills here.